


Connections During Harvest

by theashemarie



Series: Holidays Without You [2]
Category: Splatoon
Genre: Bones 2: Electric Boogaloo, College, Coming Out, Everyone Is Gay, F/F, Human AU, Long-Distance Relationship, POV Marina, Pearl not cursing? Impossible, Rating for Cursing, Thanksgiving
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-02
Updated: 2019-12-08
Packaged: 2021-02-26 06:14:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,350
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21638671
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theashemarie/pseuds/theashemarie
Summary: "They’ve only been friends for a few weeks, but it feels like Marina’s known Pearl forever. They just... clicked, like long lost friends. And that’s the problem, because the more they get to know one another, the more Marina feels weak in the knees, the more her insides learn how to tie knots, the more she begins to doubt herself."Marina must confront her feelings, Pearl's trying to tell her something, and Eight wishes they would just kiss and get it over with... Too bad there's miles and miles between them.[LDR AU, Human AU, Coming Outs and a major step in a relationship]
Relationships: Marina/Pearl (Splatoon)
Series: Holidays Without You [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1532537
Comments: 39
Kudos: 77





	1. Cars & Letters

**Author's Note:**

> This is the second part of a series, and I highly encourage you to read the first part. It contains a lot of important information, and I think it's pretty neat! :)

The week of thanksgiving hits hard and fast. Three weeks after returning home from a whirlwind Halloween, and the end of the semester is already on top of her. Marina can barely keep up, but she’s finally landing in a rhythm.

Marina’s schedule is thus: class in the mornings because, unlike everyone else, she actually _likes_ eight AMs, lunch, work from one to three, vocal lessons until five (on Monday, Wednesdays, and Fridays), dinner, and, at six on the dot, she’s glued to her phone from then on. She does homework between texts, sometimes while she and Pearl are on call together, not talking but enjoying each other’s company. Sometimes, she eats dinner with her little sister, when said little sister can bear to come back to the apartment in time. Eight—real name Tavi, but Marina isn’t going to call her something she doesn’t want to be called—is a busy freshman with eighteen credit hours of classes, soccer practice, and a bunch of clubs that Marina can’t keep track of. Most days, they see each other’s in the morning at around midnight, when they both stumble into the kitchen for energizing snacks, and that’s it.

Today is different though. It’s the end of November, one of the worst months of the year for a college student, and Eight is avoiding her homework like it’s an angry viper. Instead, she’s elbow deep in the junk heap that she calls a car. A recent pick-up from her favorite junkyard, she had it towed here and dropped right in a spot outside their apartment. Marina is pretty sure it’s against the rules to work on it in the parking lot, but Eight has the uncanny knack to get out of trouble when she needs to. One of the office ladies even walked by while she was working on it and waved, amused when Eight returned the gesture with a grease-stained hand.

“I’m just saying,” Eight says from under the car. The only thing Marina can see is her booted feet, poking out from under the bumper. “You spend a _lot_ of time on the phone. You _sure_ you’re not like... y’know?” She sticks a hand out. “Wrench, please.” 

Marina presses it into her hand with maybe a bit too much force. “That’s the problem. I _don’t_ know.”

Eight’s hand pulls back and Marina hears her grunt and struggle with something. “Well, you like her right?”

Marina scowls. “She’s my friend.”

Eight sighs. “You _like_ her, right?”

Marina grimaces and kicks at an empty oil can. “I don’t know. We’ve only been friends for less than a month.”

“But you talk every day, for like... hours. And you’re always laughing. She makes you _laugh_ , Mar. That’s gotta count for something. And you had a crush on her before, right?”

Marina sighs and crosses her arms. “When I was fourteen... Before Dad made me move.”

Something bangs under the car and Eight curses softly. “Right. I remember. I caught you writing those love letters.”

Marina crouches, jeans stretched tight over her knees, and points a strong finger at Eight. “We agreed you’d never mention that.”

Eight chuckles and sends Marina a smirk. “Aww, but it’s not every day you catch your big sister writing sappy shit to some girl. I needed the dirt.”

“We barely knew each other.”

“Exactly. I had to catch up on thirteen years of lost teasing.” She squints up into the belly of the car, rolls the wrench toward Marina with a clatter, and sighs. “For real though, I... It was kinda a relief. I knew I could trust you because I... It was weird being a teen in a new country, y’know? At least I knew you wouldn’t hate me for liking girls.”

Marina smiles softly and pats her foot. “Even if I didn’t have that crush, I wouldn’t have hated you. You’re my sister.”

“Yeah... Anyway, you and Pearl... I think there’s something there. I’ve never heard you so happy, especially after that mess with dad. I think you should just... chill. Let your friendship be what it’ll be and let it become what it’ll become.”

Marina sends her a long, inquisitive glance. “That’s good advice. So poetic. You sure you’re not an English major?”

Eight scowls. “I wish. Screwdriver, please.”

+++

Eight is smart, really smart. So smart that she’s in school for astrophysics. The problem is that she likes to work with her hands, building things, fixing cars, tricking out motorcycles, but their father wants her to make something of herself. He thinks that she should be a rocket scientist, should build ships that reach all the way to the cosmos, not fix SUVs that drive children to softball practice. It’s slowly killing her, and it hurts to watch her struggle. Marina’s found her in the kitchen asleep on top of her homework multiple times, and she knows that she’s barely eating. The only joy she has these days is soccer practice and her car.

Eight is about a year younger than Marina and is technically her half-sister. Marina’s mother passed when she was still an infant (cancer), and her father, a military man, left Marina with her maternal grandparents and quickly found a new wife in an American ex-pat when he was stationed in Germany. Because of this, Marina only knew Eight as a distant face in a foreign land until she was fourteen, when her father was transferred back in the States and he finally decided to do his job as a parent. He had Marina shipped down to Texas, where she finally met Eight and her stepmother, and promptly fell into a massive dark period because she missed her grandparents, her friends, and the seasons. She only recovered when Eight became her best friend.

They grew close because they had to. Eight was new to the States and Marina was new to Texas, so they leaned hard on one another. After Eight caught Marina writing one the last letters she would ever write to Hime Houzuki, they clicked. They teased one another, they cried over lost crushes, and they learned how to get through the hot winters. Because Eight was raised by two Americans, she spoke perfect English without a hint of an accent, but she also was fluent in German, something she used to snag friends. Turned out, thirteen-year-olds were fascinated with learning curse words in any language, so she was quick to find her place.

Marina struggled, but she always had Eight. And, she had Halloween and school holidays to look forward to, when she would return back to her native New Jersey/New York to see her grandparents and her friends. Those were the only things that got her through those first few months.

Now though, they’re in college, away from Texas, away from their demanding father, away from the heat and the oppressive politics, away from New Jersey, in a new place entirely, a place that’s just theirs. But, they’re still figuring it out. At least they still have each other.

That evening, they eat dinner (Chinese take-out) together on the couch, staring at Food Network and critiquing the _Chopped_ contestants like professional backseat chefs. Eight picks at her rice with her chopsticks and Marina shoves sushi down her throat as quickly as she can.

“Okay,” Eight says during a commercial, turning so that she’s facing Marina fully. “Here’s what I think. I think Pearl is into you.”

Marina nearly chokes on a piece of sushi. She coughs, wet and loud, and grabs for her water. “ _What_?” she demands once her windpipe is clear.

“She’s into you! Your phone’s been vibrating like the cat does when he knows he’s getting fed! She’s been texting you _nonstop_! She’s _into_ you.”

Marina doesn’t reply, just grabs for her phone and flips it over. There are at least twenty texts, all of varying lengths, from Pearl. She’s telling Marina about her day—she trekked into New York and performed in the subway with her band, and then ate a dozen Krispy Kreme donuts and almost threw up in Penn Station. Now, she’s staying at her dad’s NYC apartment because she doesn’t know if she can stomach the train back. _dunno if i can handle the sight of newark right now_ , is the last text, and it makes Marina chuckle.

“ _See_?” Eight demands, looking smug.

“How do you know she’s... y’know. Into girls? You’ve never met her.”

Eight points right at Pearl’s contact photo, the one she snapped quickly outside the diner. “That’s a lesbian. I know my kind.”

Marina stares at it, at Pearl’s cute smile and her piercings, her messy hair. She’s got the picture memorized already, but every time she looks at it it feels new, like she’s never seen such a beautiful girl before. She bites her lip and forces herself to look away.

“I can’t know for sure until she tells me,” Marina says, because she doesn’t want to make assumptions. “In high school, she had boyfriends.”

“High school is the church of regret. Marina...” Eight carefully reaches forward and turns the phone over to draw Marina’s attention back up. “Are you okay? You’ve been worried about this for weeks.”

It’s true. As soon as she got home, she started rambling about Pearl. Granted, she didn’t reveal that she knew her before all this until a few days ago, but they’ve been having this conversation for weeks. Marina, panicked about how squidgy her stomach got when she thought about Pearl, talked to Pearl, reviewed those precious few hours they had together in that corn maze, and Eight, exasperated by how clueless Marina seemed—going in circles about this, all because Marina couldn’t _be sure_ , and because she didn’t quite know how to handle all of this anyway.

It's been easy to forget that Pearl used to be Hime, especially now that they’re apart and Marina is mostly confronted with only text on a screen or Pearl’s tinny voice through her phone’s speaker, but every now and then Marina looks at Pearl’s contact picture from just the right angle and all she sees is Hime. Hime in all her safe distance, her unavailability, the object of Marina’s attention because she was a benign outlet, someone Marina could project her budding attraction on without worry. There was _no way_ Hime knew she existed, let alone would return her feelings, so she was a perfectly suitable crush.

Marina explored her confused, puberty-fueled body and emotions like any other fourteen-year-old. While other girls crushed on boy bands or celebrities, she crushed on the closest thing she had to a celebrity in school—the rich upperclassman who seemed too cool for everything.

But now? Now, suddenly, she’s faced with that same crush, except this time she isn’t at that safe distance. She’s right there, and she’s perfectly receptive to Marina’s feelings. In fact, she _encourages_ closeness by virtue of their emotional openness. Despite the distance between them, they share everything, from the minutia of their days to their troubles and fears. Just yesterday, Pearl revealed that she was terrified of being seen as a failure, which was why she worked so hard with her band, because she wanted to _prove_ to her father she was worth something. Marina, meanwhile, told Pearl her whole life story, leaving out only the stuff about her sexuality and her crush, because she wasn’t quite ready for _that_ conversation.

They’ve only been friends for a few weeks, but it feels like Marina’s known Pearl forever. They just... _clicked_ , like long lost friends. And that’s the problem, because the more they get to know one another, the more Marina feels weak in the knees, the more her insides learn how to tie knots, the more she begins to doubt herself.

The more she has to confront the fact that she’s never _really_ gotten over Hime.

Moving away was good for her. She was able to put Hime Houzuki away and forget about that troubling crush. But she never really moved on, just locked that whole mess away in the back of her brain and forgot about it. But now, confronted with Pearl and her familiar voice and face, Marina’s worried that she’s just coasting on that residual affection. What if she doesn’t _actually_ like Pearl, but the fact that she’s also Hime? What if she only likes the idea of Pearl? What if she finally gets over this and suddenly all of her feelings evaporate?

Eight thinks that’s bullshit and she’s told Marina that multiple times. The fact is, Eight’s told her, Marina likes Pearl’s face, which helped with the initial crush, but she probably read something in her vibe, something in her aura, picked up on something when she was that tiny little freshman that no one else did. Hime and Pearl are the same person, and Marina clearly saw something that no one else could see.

“ _And_ ,” Eight said, “ _your gaydar must be really good. That helps_.”

Marina groans and leans back against the couch. “I don’t know what to do,” she says, an answer to Eight’s question. She covers her face with her hands, suddenly exhausted. “What if she’s just being nice?”

“Nah uh.” Eight smacks her lightly on the knee. “Don’t do that worthless shit. She’s _not_ just being nice. Being nice would be texting every few days. You two text every day for hours. You talk for hours. You’re best friends, I know, but I got this feeling. All you gotta do is just... mention being gay. Or something. If she is too, she’ll tell you.”

Marina groans again, because she’s not sure if it’s that simple. She’s not sure if she’s okay putting that word on herself, considering she’s only ever had one singular crush.

“Or don’t,” Eight adds. “But you gotta do _something_ , Marina. You’re dying. Go write her a letter or something.”

Marina looks down at her hands, at her sushi on the coffee table. The cooking show is back on, but they’re not watching it anymore. “Maybe I should,” Marina sighs.

“I promise not to read it this time,” Eight adds, and Marina grabs a pillow and shoves it into her face, laughing.

+++

That night, Marina sits at her desk with her earbuds in. All she can hear is Pearl’s breathing and the occasional siren because Pearl has the window open. Marina is surrounded by sound equipment because her desk doubles as her mixing station—her closest is her recording studio if she needs her voice for anything—but today she’s doing homework. This is a common situation—Pearl and Marina spend their evenings together doing their own things while on the phone. It makes them feel closer, like they’re within arm’s reach, and enables them to mumble about random things.

Right now, Pearl is eating a late dinner—hallah she picked up from a cart on the corner with a hearty glass of water because Marina’s been annoying her to hydrate. Pearl has a terrible habit of not drinking because she thinks it slows her down, having to go the bathroom all the time, and it drives Marina up the wall, even all the way here, hours away from her.

“ _Damn_ that’s spicy. He really loaded me up,” Pearl mutters, and Marina hears her suck greedily on her straw. Her swallow is so loud that her microphone easily picks it up. “What’d you do today?” Pearl continues, breathing a little funny from the spice. “You didn’t really text me.”

“Ah,” Marina says, and taps her pencil on her music theory work, striking right on top of a treble clef. “I spent a lot of time with Eight. We haven’t seen each other in a while so I helped her with her car and then we ate dinner together.”

“That’s crazy to me, that she’s just fixing a car. Who _does_ that?”

Marina smiles to herself and scribbles a small eighth note into her workbook. “You’d be amazed how productive you can be when you’re putting something off.”

Pearl laughs. “I got an idea. You have no _idea_ how good I am at procrastinating.”

She doesn’t, and that surprises her. “Oh yeah?”

“Hell yeah. I didn’t do _any_ of my homework in school. I was so bored. So, _so_ bored. Especially in math class. I think I slept more than I was awake.”

Marina considers that, thinks back to that time, sees the Hime of her memories, remembers how she never seemed to carry a backpack and her locker was always stuffed full of books—but not books she was supposed to be reading for class. It was all comics, manga, YA novels, the occasional poetry book. At the time, she didn’t make anything of it, but now...

“You read a lot though, right?” she asks, letting her memories get the better of her.

Pearl lets out a small little noise of surprise. “What the hell... How’d you _know_ that? I kept that a secret from everyone.”

Marina feels her stomach flip over. “Uh...” she drones, begging her mind to come up with some kind of excuse. “I... Uh... I saw in your locker once...”

“ _Oh_ ,” Pearl breathes out, and Marina feels herself relax. Crisis averted. “I forgot about that. Yeah... I spent a lot of time in the salon, y’know? All that hair... I had to get it trimmed every two weeks to get rid of the dead ends and had to have my roots touched up. Heh... It was a losing battle, but Dad always wanted a blondie... Shoulda thought of that before marrying my mom, huh? Asian all the way down. But I liked it... Still do it. But I cut it myself now because I don’t like _anyone_ getting close to my head with that sharp shit.

“But yeah... I read a lot because I was in the salon all the time. And I _hated_ those dumb magazines they had there, so I always picked up library books and shit. Most of the time it was comics, but I liked _Harry Potter_ too.”

That’s a lot to take in, so Marina takes a few beats to think, to compute that. “Your dad made you dye your hair?”

“ _Please_.” Pearl scoffs and Marina hears her stuff more food in her mouth. “I wanted it to be blonde. He just really liked it, was all. He paid out of the ass for me to maintain it. Mom thought I was overcompensating for something.”

“Were you?”

“ _No_ , I just wanted to be blonde.”

Marina grins into her fist. Pearl sounds so frustrated, like she’s had this conversation a lot, but she also seems to be amused by it, by Marina’s interest, by her attention. She sighs in Marina’s ear and Marina hears her push away from the table.

They fall back into silence then, Marina focused on her homework and Pearl humming softly while scrolling through her social media. Her voice relaxes Marina, and, soon enough, she feels the stress of the day, of all that worry, fall away. This is Pearl after all, Marina’s friend, her confidante. She’s never felt as comfortable around anyone as she does around Pearl, despite the newness of their friendship, and being like this, so far apart but still feeling that closeness, helps her relax.

Pearl hums nonsense tunes, plucking them out of the air, and Marina stops to listen, the notes of the page mixing with the ones sailing into her ear. Pearl has a beautiful voice, soprano and clear, obviously well-trained, probably from a young age, and Marina wonders, not for the first time, if she could convince Pearl to provide it for one of her tracks. Marina has a modest following online for her electropop tracks, most of which she sings on top of or samples her own voice for, but she wants to branch out, to collaborate, and Pearl’s high voice would fit perfectly with her bubbly, industrial style.

The problem, of course, is that Pearl’s band also has a modest following, and her voice in their tracks is completely different. She sings gutturally, pulled straight from her throat and graveled from between her teeth—hardened, screamed, loud. Marina isn’t sure if she would go for something else, because of her image, but also because she’s always brushed off Marina’s compliments on her natural voice as niceties. She doesn’t have the confidence in the tune-carrying power of her voice, only trusts it for its strength and volume.

In fact, Marina has offered multiple times to—

“Marina... There’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you...”

All thoughts stumble to a halt when Pearl speaks, apropos of nothing. For a second, Marina can’t hear anything over the line except Pearl’s breathing, and she thinks that she imagined that, but then Pearl continues.

“You seem like you remember a lot from when we were in school together... Do you remember how I... Do you remember all those boys that would hang around me?”

“Your boyfriends?” Marina asks, without thought, far too concerned with the sinking sensation in her stomach.

Pearl’s scowl is so strong, Marina can practically feel it through the line. “You too, huh? They _weren’t_ my boyfriends— Well, one of them was, but we barely touched each other.”

That strikes Marina and she has to stand. “Wait,” she says as she begins to pace, “I thought you had a new boyfriend every week...”

“ _Ha,_ they wish. We weren’t actually dating. I just let them hold my hand. I was this like... This prize, I guess. If they could convince me to hang around them for a week, they got all this clout or whatever. I put up with it because they kept me distracted.”

“I— Pearl, that sounds miserable...”

“Yep! It was.”

“Why— Why are you telling me this?”

“I... I’m not sure. I just— I wanted you to know that I’m not like... I never bounced from boy to boy. I’m not like that. I wanted to set the record straight. You have the advantage over me here because you know a lot about me while I... I didn’t know much about you until we met, so I have to correct all the bad shit you might’ve seen.”

Marina, still pacing, lets out a small sigh. “Pearl, I’m not judging you for anything... You had it _rough_ in high school. I know you’re different now.”

“Good, because... I like you, Marina, and I—”

Marina doesn’t hear the rest. Her mind gets stuck on that. _I like you, Marina. I like you, Marina. I like you, Marina. I like you, Marina._

“—even interested in...” Pearl trails off right as Marina finally manages to get her ears working again. “Yeah, I’m rambling now. I haven’t been on a date in the long time, okay? I’m not some scumbag that chews through people like that.”

“Okay... I never thought you were... Pearl, why are you telling me this?”

“I don’t know!” Suddenly, Pearl sounds agitated. “I just wanted you to know! And now you do!”

Marina is speechless for a second. She stops pacing and plants her hands on her hips, trying to make her voice sound strong and sure. “Are you okay? What’s this about?”

Pearl groans and Marina hears something thud, like she fell onto the couch. “I care what you think, Marina. That’s all. You’re like... One of three people, but I care what you think of me. I don’t want you to think I’m... I’m _better_ now, okay?”

“Okay.” Marina says firmly, desperate to comfort her. “I— I know that. You’re... You really care what I think?”

Pearl laughs then. “Yeah, yeah I do. I care a _lot_. You’re cool and calm and you... You’re one of my best friends.”

Marina falls back into her seat, smiling to herself. She closes her notebook, far too focused on this conversation, and crosses one leg over the other. “You’re one of my best friends too,” she says quietly, breathing it into the mic.

Marina hears Pearl let out a small gust of air, like she’s relieved by that. “Good... I— I know we like, just met, but I’ve never clicked with someone like I clicked with you.” She lets out a small laugh, like she’s laughing at herself. “That’s sappy as hell but that’s how it is! You mean a lot to me!”

Marina can’t help it—she laughs a little. “I thought you were punk.”

“Listen, Reena, there’s nothing more punk than being genuine about your feelings and telling your friends that you care about them! Everyone is so _repressed_. Punks are free.”

That makes Marina laugh, from deep in her gut, and she leans back in her seat, staring up at the ceiling. She pictures Pearl, in some airy, rich apartment in New York City, holding her phone close to her face, telling Marina how much she cares after only a couple weeks. They’re so far apart, but suddenly Marina feels incredibly close to her, as if she’s on the other side of the wall and not a few states away.

“Thank you,” Marina says, muttering it right into Pearl’s ear.

“For what?”

“For being my friend.”

Pearl lets out a small laugh. “Anytime, Marina. Thanks for being mine, you sap.”

+++

_Dear Pearl,_

_I don’t know how to start this, so I’m just gonna write until I figure it out. I’ve been thinking about this all day. Eight says that I’m thinking too hard, but she’s also the one who talks in poetic lines and is studying astrophysics, so I think she’s full of it. She thinks hard about everything. It’s like she never stops._

_It runs in the family. I can’t stop thinking about you. And me. Us. I really like you. Earlier today, I told you you were one of my best friends, and that was the truth, but I also... feel a certain way about you that doesn’t fall under the ‘best friends’ umbrella. Last night, I dreamed about kissing you, which wasn’t weird because I used to dream about kissing you all the time but—_

_Wait, you don’t know that part._

_This is the hard part. When I was fourteen, I had a_ massive _crush on you. You were so_ COOL _and nice, and you always smiled at me. At least, I thought you were smiling at me. Knowing you now, I know that you were just smiling neutrally, trying to keep up that little act to please your father. Smiling like that—it made you look beautiful, but thinking back, I know it hurt you. I like your smile now. That fake smile used to make me really excited to see, but when I look at your contact pic now, I know that that’s you. You’re more than a small smile. You’re scowls and grimaces and you’re loud and brash and I like that._

_Like I said, I had a huge crush on you. You were cool, nice, and pretty, and I was scared of liking girls. I’m still kinda scared of it. I don’t know how to tell people, and I don’t know how to handle it. But, talking to you makes me feel safe, and I can tell that you always listen to everything I say. You listen and you think and you’re careful about what you say when you know I need you to be, and that thoughtfulness keeps me up because no one’s ever treated me that way._

_So yeah. I dreamed about kissing you last night. Do you wonder about that too? Do you dream about it? We’ve only been friends for a few weeks, but I already like you so much. Hell, sitting across from you at that diner, I was already catching feelings. I’m not sure if it’s a remnant of the past and that scares me. But, in my dream, I was kissing_ you _, not Hime. I had a crush on Hime because I liked how you looked. I fell for the glamor of you, but you were also so unreachable. I knew that if I put my affection on you, you would never return it, which is what made me fall more._

_Now though, you could return that favor. And that terrifies me. And makes me so excited. What if I told you and you said you liked me back? God, I sound like a middle schooler. Or like I’m right back to fourteen-year-old Marina, writing Hime Houzuki love letters under the covers. Yeah, I did that. I hid them between my mattress and the box spring. I was ashamed, but that didn’t stop me. Nothing could stop me, except how intimidating you were._

_Silly huh? You, intimidating? But, back then, you were. Hell, you still are in a lot of ways. You’re still cool and nice. And I still love to see you smile at me. Every time you send me a selfie, I swear my heart stops. Sappy, I know, but today’s the day of sap._

_I’ll never give you this, and I’ll probably never read it back, but it feels good to get it out. I wonder how you would react, if I actually asked you. I also wonder if I’m moving too fast. We barely know each other, but like you said earlier, I’ve never clicked with someone like I’ve clicked with you._

_I’ll probably never do anything about this. I love being your friend and I don’t want to lose you. Imagine if I asked and it scared you off. Imagine if it disgusts you. Nah, we can just be friends. It’s nice, talking every day, and I wouldn’t trade your friendship for anything. You already mean that much to me._

_Thank you for being my friend. I’m sorry if I complicate things._

_Love,_

_Marina_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This needs to be said, but I'm taking MASSIVE liberties with every character here, including the agents. My decisions are informed by canon and also by how their backstories change them. That means that Eight is a little snarkier than how I usually write her. She's half black, shares a father with Marina, and is a little genius. Germany was chosen because I wanted a European language that sounds similar to English (they're both Germanic) because I always assumed that Octarian and Inkling were close, considering Marina learned Inkling pretty quickly. Phew. Okay. 
> 
> Also, this goes without saying, but this story takes place in the United States. This is solely because it's all I know. Additionally, if you know anything about me, you'll easily peg why I chose the states I did lol. 
> 
> Originally, I was gonna post this thing as a oneshot, but the second half isn't ready and I wanted to get something out today. I'm a little late, but hey! At least I got it up! 
> 
> Check me out on Twitter if that's your neck of the woods: [@theashemarie](https://twitter.com/theashemarie)!
> 
> Comments and kudos are cherished! :D <3


	2. Coming Outs & Giving Thanks

The next day, Pearl calls during lunch, which is so strange that Marina drops her sandwich and slides into the call before it can get to the second ring. She presses the phone flush against her cheek, and doesn’t bother saying hello, just says, “Pearl? Is everything okay?”

Pearl’s voice is quiet on the other end. “I just woke up. Wanted to hear your voice.”

Marina feels her stomach clench. “You sure you’re okay?”

There’s a long pause. “Yeah. I just... I had a weird dream. I’m sorry if I bothered you.”

“You didn’t. I’m just eating lunch. Do you wanna talk about it?”

Pearl breathes out quietly. “Yeah. I, uh... Y’know how thanksgiving is coming up?”

Marina makes a small, affirmative noise.

“Well, I dreamed that you were here, and you came over to my parents’ house and my dad was all weird about it. Then, we teleported to my room and I showed you all my books and you were really interested, especially in all the comics and manga because you’re such a huge nerd, but then you saw an old picture that my mom has of me on my old dresser. It’s of me at junior prom with my ex-boyfriend. He’s wearing this terrible suit with a top hat and I’m in full prissy bitch mode. My hair’s got those perfect curls that you only see in the movies and my make-up is professionally done. The dress is a bright, shimmery gold. My nails are done too, like, really long...” She trails off and Marina hears her let out a disgusted sound.

“You looked at that picture and you looked at me and you said that you couldn’t be my friend anymore and you left. Well, it’s more like you poofed. You just disappeared. Then suddenly my room was dark, and I tried to leave to find you, but the door was locked and every time I tried to knob it just came off in my hand. I woke up before I could escape.”

Marina listens carefully and waits until she’s completely finished. By the end, her voice is quivering, and Marina can hear her moving around, like she’s pacing.

“Pearl,” Marina says, considering her words carefully, “that sounds _awful_.”

“It was! I don’t need my subconscious just hitting me with this shit! Like, I know what I’m scared of—I don’t need it just laid out like that!”

Marina grimaces and looks down at her sandwich. “Well, clearly you need to work through it, if you’re dreaming about it. If it helps, I’m not gonna drop you just because of some picture. I know what you used to be like, so one photo of you all dolled up for prom won’t chase me away.”

“That’s the thing!” Pearl is alive with energy now. “I didn’t go to prom! My boyfriend didn’t make it that long, and by then I was so tired of it. I didn’t realize it though, so Mom and I still went dress shopping and did test hairstyles and junk, but I didn’t go. I made some dumb excuse to my parents about being sick. The dress is still hanging in my closet at home.”

Marina listens carefully, leaning back and tapping her fingers on the table. She’s in the middle of the library café so she has to keep her voice modulated. “So, you’re afraid of me getting scared off if I come in contact with something from your past that reveals how much you bought into the image everyone expected out of you.”

There’s a long pause from the other end, not even the sound of pacing. It’s like Pearl froze in place. “Woah,” Pearl mutters. “You’re... You’re good. How the _hell—_ ”

Marina smiles and ignores the way a boy at a nearby table keeps glancing at her. He’s been looking at her ever since she came into the café, and she knows she’s going to have to leave soon, before he gets up enough courage to try to talk to her. She doesn’t want to deal with that today.

Marina answers easily, poking at her sandwich and avoiding eye contact. “So, the way I’ve been thinking about you is like... Pearl, which is you now, and Hime, which is you in the past when you were pretending to be the ‘prissy bitch’ as you call it. I’m not sure if you separate it out like that, but it makes sense to me so that’s how I think of it. Hime is the act and isn’t the same as Pearl, but there’s pieces of Pearl in Hime. Like... Okay, I know you mentioned nails in your dream, but I’m remembering that you never did your nails. That was the one thing you didn’t do, and it always struck me as a little weird when I would see you in the hall. Here was the perfect girl, very put together, very image-first, but your nails were bitten down to the quick. Those nails were Pearl, weren’t they?”

“I— Yeah. Marina... You’ve got a crazy good memory. How the fuck do you remember what my nails were like?”

Marina bites her lip and pushes a long lock of hair behind her ear. She has to be very careful here. “Like I said—it was weird. Weird things stick out in my memory. But, the point is that even when you were putting on the biggest act, you still couldn’t do it completely. Pearl was in there, and she was in charge of the nails. That’s how I think of you... I think that even if that prom picture existed, I’d still see Pearl in there somewhere, because you couldn’t smother her completely. So, I don’t think you’ll be able to scare me away that easily. You don’t have to worry. I’m your friend and I plan on _staying_ your friend.”

“That’s... Marina, that’s a relief.” Marina can hear the smile in Pearl’s voice, and that makes _her_ grin. Across the café, the boy that’s been watching her smiles back, as if she’s smiling at him. It makes her uncomfortable, so she carefully begins to gather her things, wraps her sandwich up as Pearl continues in her ear. “I’m... I don’t think of myself as two people, but I can see where you’re coming from. I just see it as me fucking up so bad that I lost myself. Though...”

She trails off, clearly thinking, and Marina stuffs her laptop in her backpack, zips it up, and slings it over her shoulder. She kicks her chair back under the table and grabs her sandwich, phone still pressed to her face.

The boy, seeing her quick movement, follows her lead, packing his things up, and she almost sprints for the door.

“Marina, are you okay? There’s a lot of rustling.”

Marina pushes out of the library doors and into the sun. It’s chilly out, but that suits her just fine. “I’m okay now. What were you saying?”

“Oh, just that I couldn’t stand long nails. You can’t do jackshit with them. I mean—more power to everyone who likes ‘em, but they’re _not_ for me, y’know? Even back then, I couldn’t do it. Plus—”

“Hey!” a male voice calls.

Marina speeds up.

“Are you sure okay? You’re breathing hard. Are you _running_?”

“Not yet,” Marina answers truthfully. “Please continue.”

“Not _yet_?”

“Not yet. Please Pearl, keep talking.”

“Wait!” the male voice calls again.

“Marina, I don’t think—”

“Please!” the voice calls once more. There are people staring now, at Marina speed-walking with her head down and the boy from the café chasing after her. Someone points at them, and she sighs and pulls to a stop to avoid making a scene.

“What?” she asks, and her voice is maybe a touch too hard, but she’s trying to have a conversation.

“Marina?” Pearl sounds alarmed. “What’s going on?”

The boy stands before her, looking at her with an expression she can’t read. “I just wanted to talk to you.”

“I’m on the phone.”

Pearl’s voice rises in volume as she finally seems to catch on. “Is someone bothering you? Want me to tell ‘em off? I got like two new insults I’ve been wanting to try out and—”

“I know,” the boy says, “but I hoped—”

“C’mon Marina. Hand him the phone. I’ll rip him a new asshole. He chased you down when you were like, _running away_. Guys like this, they—”

Marina sighs, exasperated, but maybe she’s feeding off Pearl’s energy because she surprises herself when she answers: “I’m not hanging up to talk to you.”

“Oh,” he says, clearly surprised. “That’s... Okay, that’s understandable. But, can I at least get your number? Or your Snapchat?”

“No,” Marina answers, and spins on her heel. She’s lucky—they’re in public and she’s on the phone, so she knows he won’t do anything more. But she still feels sick to her stomach and wants to get back to her apartment as quickly as possible, to put at least one locked door between her and the rest of the world.

“Wait! Why?” He speeds up to follow her, and she feels her free hand curl into a fist.

“Not interested,” she says. “Stop following me.”

“You tell him Marina!” Pearl cheers.

“But I—”

“I’m gay,” Marina says, surprising herself, Pearl, and the boy. He stops in his tracks, as if he never considered that as a possibility, and Marina doesn’t waste any time. She tears off into a sprint, heading right for the familiar territory of the music building, where she’ll be able to hide out in a practice room for a few minutes.

Her phone ends up away from her face as she goes and she only puts it back once she slows back to a walk, confident in the fact that he isn’t following her. “Pearl?”

“Oh my god, Marina! Are you _okay_?”

“Yeah... I— Yeah.” She stops and leans against a wall to catch her breath. “I’m sorry you had to hear that.”

“You’re sorry...? I— _I’m_ sorry that happened! What the fuck! Are you sure you’re okay? I had no idea what was happening. All I heard was all this whooshing and the sound of feet on the ground. You ran away?”

Something about the way she said that makes Marina laugh. The adrenaline in her body is making her punchy. “Yeah.” She chuckles. “I, uh... I probably overreacted.”

“He _followed_ you.” Pearl’s voice is dark, and Marina can imagine her, pacing around, glaring at the floor.

Marina sighs and pushes off the wall so she can continue on her way. She has too much energy now. “I’m okay,” she says, as Pearl continues to rant and rave, threatening the boy’s life over and over again. “Thanks for... Y’know. Not hanging up.”

“Uh, _duh_! Of course not! You were in trouble! I was about to call the police!”

That makes Marina smile. “Not sure how much that woulda helped, considering I’m not in New York.”

“Nah, I woulda called campus security or something! No way I’m letting anyone harass you!”

“I— Thanks.” She shifts her phone to the other hand. “But it’s over now, and I need to calm down. What were we talking about?”

“Uh... Nails? But, wait... Mar... Did you... Did you mean it when you told him you were gay because—”

Marina winces and bites down, hard, on her lip. This is _not_ a conversation she was planning on having today, or anytime soon. Hell, she just wrote that dumb letter last night! But, she can’t lie, not to Pearl...

“Yeah, I meant it.”

Pearl breathes out right into the mic. “ _Oh_... Because I know a lot of girls use it as an excuse to get men to leave them alone, which seems really risky if you ask me because you could just end up with more harassment. But also like... Do what you gotta do to get away. But I—”

“Pearl, I meant it. I’m gay.”

“Oh... Okay, well. That’s— That’s good, because before all that shit I was gonna make this joke like ‘I couldn’t have long nails even back then because I was too much of a lesbian’ but now it feels like a terrible way to tell you. So... Me too. I’m gay too.”

That socks Marina right in the gut and she has to stop. Someone behind her grumbles as they have to sidestep to get around her, but she barely hears them because she’s too focused on the sensation of the glass of her screen on her skin, and the sound of Pearl’s voice, and the words _I’m gay too_ are repeating over and over, pinballing around her skull, and she can’t quite breathe because what the _hell_ just happened in the last five minutes to cause two coming outs? Her feet feel heavy, her legs feel like jelly, her heart is pounding, and she can’t quite breathe.

“Reena, you okay? Is it that much of a surprise? You _saw_ me, right? Like, I’m not hiding. _Mar?_ You there?”

“I’m here.” Marina’s hand tightens around the phone and she takes one step forward, then another, then another. “I’m digesting.”

“Oh. Sorry. I didn’t think it’d be a surprise. I mean, _you_ are, but that’s just because I _suck_ —”

“It’s... I don’t like to assume, and you had a boyfriend before so...”

Pearl lets out a small bark of a laugh. “Oh, that loser? I was just trying to make my dad happy. C’mon, you know everything else was an act. Why would the boyfriend be real?”

 _Because he was what made you so unreachable_ , _made you straight so that my crush on you could never go anywhere._

“I don’t know,” Marina says. She feels like she’s floating a few millimeters out of her skin.

“Well, don’t worry about it. I’m gay as fuck. And, I got you. If you got girl troubles, I got you.”

“I don’t,” Marina says quickly, and then adds: “Have girl troubles, I mean. I’m—”

Pearl reads right into that. She lets out a small hiss of pain. “Closeted. Got it. Well, I got you there too. You can talk to me about anything.”

Marina isn’t sure if she would call her situation c _loseted_ , because she hadn’t really been interested in dating until about three weeks ago, when Pearl jumped back into her life. But then, she also hasn’t been correcting people who assume her straight, as _wrong_ as that felt, so maybe she _is_ closeted.

This is all so confusing, and now she’s got all those squidgy feelings in her belly because Pearl is being so thoughtful and supportive, and she doesn’t know how to deal with this crush and all this coming out stuff and she just wants to _let it be_. Just be Pearl and Marina, newly found friends, and see where that takes them without all this other junk.

_Let your friendship be what it’ll be and let it become what it’ll become._

Eight’s voice is in her head and Pearl’s is in her ears, and for a second she’s comforted by that—by two people who get it, who understand what it’s like to be confused by sexuality and feelings and everything else, and she feels herself relax.

“I mean it. I’m here for you, just like you were for me earlier. You can’t scare me away. I meant what I said too. You’re my best friend and—”

“Wait,” Marina says. “Your best friend...”

“Yeah, I already told you that.”

“No, before you said _one_ of your best friends.”

“Oh... _Oh_ , yeah I did. I mean, yeah, you’re basically my best friend. I don’t talk to anyone else as much as I do you and there’s shit I tell you that no one else knows... Plus, _no one_ knows about... Y’know, high school. Hime. All that. But like, seriously, I always look forward to spending time with you and we’re like always laughing and yeah... That sounds like a best friend to me.”

For some reason, that pangs Marina’s heart in the best way. She pulls to the side and leans against a wall again. “That’s... Well, in that case, then you’re my best friend too.”

“Really?”

“ _Yes_ ,” Marina says. “For a lot of the same reasons. Plus, you actually listen to everything I say and I— I just really like spending time with you. You’re my best friend.”

“Hell yeah!” Pearl cries, and Marina swears she can hear her fist pump.

Marina laughs quietly and decides that, despite everything, things might be okay.

+++

That night, Marina leans against the counter while Eight is cooking dinner and smiles at her. “Pearl’s gay,” she says simply, with no buildup.

“ _Aha!_ ” Eight bangs on the wooden spoon on the lip of the pan. “I knew it!”

+++

Thanksgiving is a small affair. Marina and Eight cook a turkey breast and pop open a tub of pre-made mashed potatoes and a can of cranberry. They eat lunch, toast to their good fortune, recite how thankful they are to have each other, and then go their separate ways. Eight has friendsgiving for dinner and Marina has plans of her own.

She has a few friends, who she texts, and who text back, but otherwise her holiday is spent in quiet, which she’s thankful for. She seats herself at her desk and slips her headphones on, lays out a track that would sound perfect with Pearl’s voice over it, and loses herself to the music. She programs her grid controller with soundbites she synthed herself, along with recordings of drills and hammering that she got from Eight, and she uses a real tambourine just for flare, and she noodles around for hours, tapping out small melodies on her keyboard that she translates to the grid and the sequencer. 

In the end, she scraps all the synthesized crap and goes right for her guitar. Same chords, different feel. She keeps the tambourine.

At six, there’s a knock on the door and she opens it to the pizza delivery man, who hands over a large pie without much of a word. Marina tips him way too much because it’s Thanksgiving, and he thanks her profusely.

Before she can search for the receipt or even open the box, her phone buzzes in her pocket and she fishes it out. It’s Pearl. _happy thanksgiving. i hope pizza is ok. sorry for being quiet today_

Marina smiles to herself and taps out a quick reply, _You didn’t have to buy me pizza! I know you were with your family all day._

_i kno but i missed u. my dad is so asdhglsdgh y’know?_

That makes Marina smile and she finally peels the box open. The pizza inside is covered with pineapple, exactly how she likes it.

 _We still on for tonight?_ she answers, because they can talk about Pearl’s dad later. Right now, she’s more focused on good things.

_hell yeah we are! i’m gonna kick your ASS!_

That makes Marina smile. _We’ll see._

She leans against the counter and munches on a slice of pizza while Pearl rambles about how good she is at Smash Bros. and how Marina’s gonna wish she’d never picked up a controller in the first place, and it makes her stomach clench in that squidgy, warm way.

Later, she sits in bed, straight-backed, with her hair pulled up and away from her face, glasses pushed up her nose, with one earbud in so she can hear the TV. Pearl shit talks in her ear, but Marina wipes the floor with her, as expected.

Eventually, Pearl gets tired of playing serious and switches characters every match, even if she’s never played them before. Marina does the same and they end up playing around more than anything, talking quietly as they knock each other off the stages.

“Mar, it’s Thanksgiving so I’m just gonna say it. I’m really thankful that you punched me.”

“Oh yeah?” Marina follows that up by doing a small reenactment. She punches Diddy Kong right off the screen.

“OKAY! Cool!” Pearl laughs, loud and long, which makes Marina laugh in return. “I try to be genuine and look where it gets me. That’s animal abuse.”

Marina chuckles and smiles to herself, watching as Pearl begins to do taunts instead of engaging her. They’re just goofing off, so she stands there and watches her.

“I’m thankful that you didn’t get mad when I punched you. Anyone else woulda been livid, rightfully.” Marina sets her controller down to pop the knuckles in her hands, and it’s like Pearl can hear her because she suddenly sends her character darting across the screen. She lays damage into her and Marina scrambles for her controller.

They skirmish for a while, but eventually Marina is declared the winner and they decide to take a break because Pearl is a bit of a sore loser. As she leans back, Marina thinks back to that night a few weeks ago, when she was so scared she lost control of herself and just punched Pearl right there, almost broke her nose, and Pearl was _impressed_ by it.

She really is thankful that Pearl’s first reaction was to drag her into the corn to hide her, because the show must go on, and not to report her to security, because if she’d been like anyone else and done the logical thing they wouldn’t have this now. Marina smiles to herself and looks down at her phone, at the first picture she has of Pearl, from that night, after the diner, and she wonders how she could get so lucky.

“Hey, I was wondering... When were at the diner, you mentioned you make music and you never told me how to find you online... I was just wondering that since we’re friends now if you would... y’know. Hook me up with the goods.”

“Right.” Marina closes her eyes and considers that. She’s listened to Pearl’s band, so it’s only fair that she returns the favor. “I’m DJ_Hyperfresh. DJ-underscore-Hyperfresh.”

“DJ— _No way..._ That’s _you_?”

Marina winces. “You’ve heard of me?”

“I _love_ your stuff! What the fuck! Marina... You’re incredible! Why’d you hide it from me?”

Marina shrugs and then realizes that Pearl can’t see it. “You’re like... kinda intimidating? And I knew you in high school... And you’re in this really cool punk band and my stuff is all electronic so...”

“Marina... You know I’m allowed to like more than one genre right? Besides, DJ_Hyperfresh... Your music is so _complex!_ Where the _hell_ do you download those synths?”

“I, uh... I make them...”

“ _You make them_... God, doing all that MIDI shit takes so much computer know-how, and you _make synths_... You’re like, some kind of musical computer genius all wrapped up in this beautiful package and—”

“Wait. What?”

“What?”

“...never mind.”

Pearl laughs then. “You’re beautiful. That’s just a fact. Anyone with eyes can see it.”

Marina’s cheeks are blazing hot and she hides her face in her hands. She can’t handle this right now, not with all these complicated emotions and this mess of revelations. Now Pearl’s calling her _beautiful_...

“I—”

“Okay, that was sappy as hell. I don’t know what’s _up_ with me, but you make me feel safe enough to say shit like that... _There I go again!_ Marina...” Pearl whines. “You’re turning me into a _sap_...”

“You’re beautiful too, y’know,” Marina says, plowing forward before she can second guess herself. “I look at your picture a lot.”

“Haha, okay.”

“I mean it.”

“I know you do.”

They lapse into silence after that, and Marina considers that. It’s clear to her that Pearl presents herself a certain way as a reaction to her youth. When they were in high school, there was _no_ denying that Pearl was beautiful. Hime was the most put together, traditionally feminine, gorgeous person in school, and Marina wanted to _be_ her just as much as she wanted to kiss her. But now, she’s clearly dressing the way she wants, presenting a way that she’s comfortable in—no make-up, all those piercings, ripped, tight clothing, scowls and squints—and that makes her even more beautiful.

The truth is that Pearl’s beauty isn’t conventional (even though her face _is_ beautiful, symmetrical and blemish-free with those golden-brown eyes), because it’s all wrapped up in this vibe of hardness, of a punkass brat who glares at the world. She makes herself unapproachable and she’s completely in control of how people see her, but that’s also what makes her beautiful. Marina likes her because she’s being true to herself, she realizes as she stares down at her phone, at that contact photo of Pearl smiling her biggest smile, and that includes all of the ways that she lives in her skin, that she makes herself comfortable.

Expression is individual, but you can tell when someone is being true to themselves, and that’s exactly why Marina finds herself gravitating toward Pearl. Screw Hime, even if Marina can still see her in the curves of Pearl’s face—Marina likes _Pearl,_ likes her hard edges and her soft, sappy moments, likes her piercings, thinks she’s the most beautiful person she’s ever seen.

This epiphany, had on Thanksgiving evening while she listens to Pearl get up, bang into something, and then curse, is exactly what she needs. She feels herself relax, because, _thank god_ , she’s _not_ just interested in Pearl because she was Marina’s first and only crush. She’s interested in Pearl because _Pearl_ , because she loves to scare people, because she’s loud, because she’s willing to curse out total strangers when they bother Marina, because she seems to care so much about Marina despite all this distance. She likes Pearl for no reason at all, and for all the reasons, and that’s how crushes work. You just know someone and latch onto them.

“Marina?” Pearl whispers, mouth incredibly close to the mic. “I know I was dismissive, but that’s because I don’t like it when people look at me like that because that used to be my whole life but... You make me feel beautiful.”

Marina smiles and falls back against her pillows. “Good... I-I mean if that’s a good thing.”

“It is.” Marina can hear the smile in Pearl’s voice. “Now, quit stalling. Do you wanna get back to me kicking your ass or...?”

Marina sits up. “As _if_. Let’s go.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Y'all ever consider how long distance makes you say the weirdest things? You get so comfortable talking that you just let everything go and say exactly how you feel. 
> 
> That scene with the boy was lifted almost word-for-word (sans phone call) from my life, as exhausted as I am to admit it. Boys, if a girl is speed-walking away from you, let her go. Trust me. 
> 
> And that's the end... Just like that. Man, this series is weird because I keep going through the Finished Fic Feeling. So bittersweet every time lol. 
> 
> Thank you so much for all your kind words and kudos! The comments last chapter were so hefty omg! <3 
> 
> See you next time for LDR 3: All I Want for Christmas is You! (Not the title, but that song is a long distance mood.)
> 
> Check me out on Twitter if that's your neck of the woods: [@theashemarie](https://twitter.com/theashemarie)!
> 
> Comments and kudos are, as always, cherished! <3


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